Tag Archives: quote

“This is not a goodbye, my darling, this is a thank you. Thank you for coming into my life and giving me joy, thank you for loving me and receiving my love in return. Thank you for the memories I will cherish forever. But most of all, thank you for showing me that there will come a time when I can eventually let you go.”

There are three million species of animals living in tropical rain forests, and one of them, the red fire ant, lives underground. Under constant threat of annihilation from flash floods. Nature doesn’t care. If a species wants to survive, it has to prove it deserves too. When the floods come, fire ants hold on to each other, creating a living raft that can float until the water recedes. Months, if necessary.

So how does a species figure something like that out? Instinct? Trial and error? Was there one fire ant who was being swept away by the rushing water and grabbed on to another ant, only to find that together they could float? What if you were the one who knew what needed to be done but you had no words? How do you make the others understand? How do you call for help?

Human beings are not the strongest species on the planet. We’re not the fastest, or maybe even the smartest. The one advantage we have is our ability to cooperate to help each other out. We recognize ourselves in each other, and we’re programmed for compassion, for heroism, for love. And those things make us stronger, faster and smarter. It’s why we’ve survived. It’s why we even want to.

Once, the philosopher Erich Fromm forecast a society that was obsessed with possessions. He believe that human beings had two basic orientations: having and being. A person with a having orientation seeks to acquire and possess things, property, even people. But a person with a being orientation focuses on the experience. They derive meaning from exchanging, engaging, and sharing with other people.

Unfortunately, Fromm also predicted that a culture driven by commercialism, like the one we live in today, is doomed to the having orientation, which leads to dissatisfaction and emptiness. People is now easier to get what they wanted. However, to share, to offer, to give, or to sacrifice things they have to someone else is not that easy.